 Now after a very busy month, I'm ready for some easy weeknight meals. How about you guys? Now we're finally getting around to cleaning up our Christmas tree, but I want to show you something. So right before Christmas, I had COVID and my husband decided to take the girls to chop down their very first Christmas tree. This was a great idea until we started cleaning up the tree and I noticed something. Now if you zoom in on this, you'll be able to see there are probably, I don't know, hundreds, hundreds of little beetles that we believe hatched and then stuck to the tree. Not going to lie, grateful to be done with that nasty tree. And also last video I told you that I was due January 7th. That is not true. It is February 7th. We're just going to blame that one on the pregnancy because sometimes my brain is not functioning. Now with it being January, I thought I'd start off the month right with some simple, easy weeknight recipes. These ones are my favorites. Okay, I'm going to start with the King's Hawaiian rolls. The only bad thing about the air fryer is that they all won't fit. So I actually am pulling three aside. So we're just going to cook the nine right now. So if you have a smaller family, this will work perfect. So I actually, I cut these in half. We'll just open them right up. Then we're going to make the yummy sauce that goes inside. You do anywhere from a quarter cup to a half a cup of mayonnaise and then about a quarter cup to a half a cup of honey mustard. So you just want to make sure that these are kind of like the same amount. But yeah, I'm going to do about a quarter cup and then mix them all together. Then I am just going to scoop on the sauce and just spread it around the best that I can. Once you have both sides you want to have covered in the sauce, then it's time to add your turkey. So I love using the deli meat. I just think it tastes a lot better. So you just need one side. Make sure that you have all the bread covered. So now we're going to add the Swiss cheese. I love just getting this pre cut Swiss cheese. It just makes my life a lot easier. So we're just going to make sure that all the pieces have some Swiss cheese on them. So we're going to gently put this on. There we go and put it right into the air fryer. Okay, so now we need the topping. So this is one fourth cup of butter that we've melted. And then we're going to add one teaspoon of, we're going to call it the W sauce just because I struggle saying W sauce. You know what I'm talking about. Yep, W sauce. Then we're going to do one tablespoon of poppy seeds. It seems like a lot but trust me it makes it taste so good. Okay, then go ahead and mix this all together. This is going to be your yummy like topping on top of it. It's going to make it taste so good. Now it's just time to cover the tops with the poppy seed butter. Amazingness. Okay, now we're going to cook it at 350 degrees. We're going to go for five minutes and then check on it just so it's not burning. I checked these at three minutes and they are starting to get crispy on the top but the cheese is all melted. So we're going to call this a win and cook them just so you know I only cook them for three minutes. The next one is the sliders. You ready? Okay, I'm going to let you take a bite first and I'll take a bite after you. And she's the kid who likes sauces and mayonnaise and stuff. So I'm curious of your thoughts. I like the crunch at the top. Okay. And other than that it pretty much just tastes like normal sided. Right, we have sliders a lot in our house but I like it. Okay, one out of five. Five? I go to five too. I love sliders. All right guys, let's move on to the next one. The next recipe I'm making is one pan chicken fajitas. Now I love this because I can cook my chicken and my vegetables all at the same time then you just fill them in a tortilla. Super simple. The first thing we're going to do is to lay the chicken tenders onto the sheet pan. Next we're going to add either taco seasoning or fajita seasoning, whatever you have. We're going to add about half of the packet on top of the chicken. Next I'm going to take a jar of salsa. I love herdez salsa and we're just going to sprinkle a little bit of salsa on top of the chicken also. Okay, so I cut up a yellow pepper and a red pepper and then I also cut up an onion. Now you can do your onion in strips but my kids don't really love onions so I'm trying to hide them so I did small pieces for my onions. Then we're just going to pour this right on top of your chicken. You can do it in between, you can do it on top, it doesn't really matter. Now for the onions. Now I'm just going to add the rest of the taco seasoning right on top and then we're going to drizzle everything with a little bit of olive oil. Okay this is all ready to cook so we're going to cook it at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes. All right when you're all done you're just going to take it and put it in a tortilla and add your most favorite toppings. So if you notice I'm using whole wheat tortillas just to make it a little bit healthier so if you're going healthier whole wheat's the way to go. All right, ready? So good. Instant pot sloppy joes. You're going to love this one. You're first going to start by pushing the saute button. Once it's warm you're going to add one tablespoon of butter you're just going to let it melt in there. Next you're going to add just one pound of ground beef. You can also use ground turkey if you want to. We're using ground beef today. Then just start separating your meat. On top of that you're going to add one red pepper, about a half of a red onion and just go ahead and mix that all together. Now you're not going to cook this all the way through but just a little bit until your meat is brown. Now even though it's not cooked through you can drain your grease right now. Okay you're going to push off and then we're going to add the sauce. Now down below in the description this is a homemade sauce. You can find that recipe there. Then we're going to mix this all together. There's enough liquid in there that it should be able to pressurize. So we're going to put your lid on. You're going to turn that little knob to ceiling. You're going to push pressure cook and then we're just going to cook this. So finish cooking the meat at eight minutes. When it's done go ahead and let the pressure out and your beef should be done and it should be well combined. Those vegetables will be nice and cooked all together. I love serving this on buns you can add with of course chips or a side salad. Pork chops and potatoes are cooked at the same time. You're first going to add three fourths cup of Italian seasoning into a bowl. A teaspoon of Italian seasoning and then a half cup of Parmesan. And then just mix that all together. All right I'm going to line my cookie sheet with foil. Then you're just going to spray with some non-stick cooking spray. All right so first you're going to take one of your pork chops. Now mine has a bone in it. It doesn't matter. So a bone in or without a bone that's great. So you're going to put it into a half a cup of your melted butter and then into your Italian seasoning mixture and you're going to press it pretty good then flip it then press it again. Then it's just going to go right onto your pan. All right once they're all done let's head on over to the potatoes. All right now it's time for the potatoes so I have about five potatoes that I chopped up. Again I like to do bite-sized pieces just because they're easier to eat. We'll just dump them right into a bowl. Then I'm just going to drizzle the top with a little bit of olive oil and then some salt and some pepper. Then you're just going to mix this to coat all of the potatoes. So then you're just going to dump the potatoes all around the pork chops. We want them to be touching the foil because they'll cook a little bit better. Then you just want to spread them out making sure they're not on top of each other. Then you're just going to cook these for 400 degrees for about 35 to 40 minutes. All right when it's all done cooking you're going to go ahead and plate up your pork chops and your potatoes. Now I also like to serve this with a delicious side salad. So you're going to take about a pound of your favorite sausage, cook it up into a skillet, cook it until it is no longer pink and cooked all the way through. Now while that's cooking take a 9x9 pan and spray it with cooking spray. Now I have about four biscuits, canned biscuits that I have here. I've cut them into pieces four pieces and just lay them onto the bottom. I'm going to cook those at 400 degrees for 10 minutes or until they're brown. Now while when this is done cooking I'm going to add about two and a half tablespoons of flour and we're just going to mix that in. This is how we're going to make the gravy of our biscuits and gravy casserole. Then we're going to add two and a half cups of milk and a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper. You're kind of just going to mix that all in together until it starts to thicken and it will thicken trust me. Once it's done thickening you're going to pour it on top of the biscuits. Then you want to make sure that you've spread it around really well so all of the gravy and the sausage is in between the biscuits because you don't want hard biscuits you want them you know covered in the gravy right? Am I right? Yes I am. Then you're going to add the rest of the biscuits so there's four more biscuits. You're going to cut them into fourths and then you're just going to place them on top of your gravy, your sausage gravy. There we go. I can't speak today. Once you're done with that it's time to go into the oven so you're going to cook them for about 10 to 15 more minutes or until the biscuits are just nice and golden brown on top. Now I love cooking meatballs in the Instant Pot. It's one of my most favorite things because frozen meatballs cook so fast and you can have a recipe literally on your table in about 15 minutes. So if you guys are ready let's get cooking. Alright so the first thing we're going to do is kind of saute the vegetables to get them just a little bit softer and full of flavor. So we're going to go over to our Instant Pot. Now this is a luxe it's an older version but it all the Instant Pot should have a saute button. So you're going to just push the saute and then wait for it to get hot. So once your Instant Pot's hot we're going to add just two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of olive oil. Then we're just going to mix this around, melt our butter, get the bottom hot and toasty so we can cook the vegetables. Okay so the first thing we're going to put in there is just one onion all chopped up small. I like little onions. Then we're just going to add about four to six stalks of celery depending on how much you like. Then I'm going to add four large carrots that we cut into little pieces or if you're lazy you can always just throw in some baby carrots but I like I like how these taste. Okay once our vegetables are in we're kind of just going to stir it around with the oil and the butter just to brown them up a little bit. So this will take about two to three minutes just until your onions start to get soft your celery starts to get soft but don't worry your carrots will cook as your Instant Pot cooks. Okay as your vegetables are cooking we're just going to add four teaspoons of garlic in there. Make that smell really good with the onions. Okay so it's been a few minutes now I'm going to add all my other stuff. So first I'm going to just add two cans of crushed tomatoes. Now you want to leave the juice in there because this is a soup so you want it to be soupy. Mix that around a little bit you can still have your sauté on it won't hurt anything. Now we have three tablespoons of tomato paste that we're going to throw in there. Now I am just going to eyeball it because you know that's how I roll. Then we're going to just add one packet of ranch. Now my secret this is Kroger Ranch. Now you can buy name brand ranch but you'll pay almost a dollar more. I love buying store brand because it's literally the same ingredients and it tastes just as good so save a dollar here and there when you buy store brand. Okay we're going to mix this in for a little bit. Mmm it's starting to smell really good. Okay now we're going to add the beef broth. Okay so we have because it's a soup we're going to add four cups of beef broth which is this whole entire container. I love buying these containers because I don't have to measure I can just pour it all in. Okay mix that around a little bit now we're getting pretty full on our instant pot. So this is a six quart if you're going to make a through if you're going to make this recipe with a three quart you want to half the recipe or it's going to overflow. So I you can make this recipe just fine in a six quart or eight quart. All right now the most important part is the meatballs. I just have a 32 ounce bag of frozen meatballs this is one of my favorite brands it's cooked perfect this is kind of these are the meatballs that I buy all the time so I'm just going to dump those carefully and without splashing too much. There we go. Okay mix those around a little bit now there's enough liquid in here it's not going to burn and it's going it's going to be just perfect so we're going to put the lid on right now make sure that this little knob is turned to ceiling not venting now because we have the saute button on we need to turn that off so we have to push cancel so push cancel and then we'll push either this is the old version so it's a manual button or pressure cook button depending on what you have now I love this because meatballs only take seven minutes to cook so once you set the timer you can just walk away. Okay so when the timer is done you're just going to turn the little knob to venting to let out all the pressure and steam so the lid can open so once the lid is up oh it smells so good nice okay we're going to just dish it up and you guys will see just how yummy it is now my kids like this because they love the meatballs in it I swear that's their favorite food I like it because there's vegetables and other good things in it okay so we're just going to add some toppings onto it so we like to add cheese because my kids will eat anything with cheese right and then just a little bit of green onions on top just give it a pop of color and a little bit of flavor all right guys there you go super easy meatball soup buffalo chicken tostadas it doesn't really get much easier than this and it's also super healthy well for the most part it's healthier healthier than going out to eat it's true it's very true better than a big mac but okay so we'll get started so the first thing you're going to want to do is add your plain greek yogurt so we have about a cup and a half of plain greek yogurt right here you can use like a sour cream mayonnaise combination but this is from our new healthy cookbook so we're going for healthier alternatives here okay what's next I can help you so we're going to add about a half cup of some buffalo sauce and we'll just mix this together nice and this we always mix this separately before we add in the chicken just to help combine it just a little bit better to maybe smooth out the greek yogurt yes there we go what's the word greek yogurt so once you have this mix we'll just add in our chicken you could do you could boil your chicken breasts or do them in the instant pot and shred them I love rotisserie chicken because I'm lazy all the cooking is done or you just gotta shred it okay you want to add that in here ready for me yes you want all of it in there um yeah most of it okay that's probably good perfect okay so again just like five to six cups of shredded chicken nice we'll mix this all together now also like if your kids don't love the hot sauce you can also add some barbecue sauce in too it would still be like a creamy barbecue sauce but I love hot sauce I love things and it gets tamed with the twangreek yogurt so it's not as spicy so I have the most weak mouth and I cannot do spicy and I love these so perfect perfect and then once you add the cheese and all the other toppings and a weak mouth like mine will handle which is fine golden all right so now do you just want to put about a half cup on each tostada so this recipe it kind of serves a lot it serves but about five to six it makes about 10 to 12 tostadas we're just gonna do one pan of six today but we usually serve two per person when we serve this yeah I eat two yeah easily eat two and then once you have all your chicken on top this is a fun way to get your kids involved kind of get them familiar with cooking more healthy there we go they can top these off with their favorite toppings so it's kind of like a pizza so we'll top these with some mozzarella cheese you can use really any cheese that you have on hand but we definitely prefer our mozzarella we have some mozzarella our fresh mozzarella that would be really good yes it would and then to these we've just chopped up some green onions and some cilantro so this is also if your kids are kind of weird with both of these toppings you can put them on before the cheese so then it's kind of hidden and they won't say it but just admit them and they still eat it I'm sure and it's great flavor to it right I love green onions and the hot sauce that's one of my favorite things all right the best part about this recipe is it takes three minutes to cook these you're just going to broil them on high for three minutes and then got them in about a bit perfect kind of out of control with this launcher that's okay everyone loves some good cilantro me too okay all right should we stick them in yes perfect so that's literally all you have to do for this recipe it what how many minutes that took us to throw together maybe five maybe five and it's super delicious now if you are going even healthier you can easily serve this on a salad yes or something like that but for now our kids love this and it's good all right so good let's move on to the next recipe all right so on your instant pot you're going to push the saute button there we go once it starts heating up you're going to add one pound of ground beef into it so just going to dump that in whoop not that part all right and then I'm also going to add one onion that we've chopped up into pretty small pieces just going to throw that in with it next I'm going to take my lovely chopster now I've talked about my chopster quite often so if you haven't seen this yet I'll put a link down below in the description it is my most favorite probably one of my most favorite tools in the whole kitchen so it just breaks up your meat so easily as you cook all right so once your meat is cooked pretty well like it's almost all brown and your onions are getting a little bit tender now it's time to add everything else in so okay so first we're going to add just one green pepper in there and we're going to start adding in some of the sauces so first we're going to do like this is 29 ounces of tomato sauce now this seems like a lot of sauce but just trust me on this one it's it's going to be good so we have 29 ounces of that then we have two cans of diced tomatoes we're going to leave all the liquid in these two then we have one can of corn again we're just going to leave the liquid in because we're going to cook our noodles in this at the same time okay then for some of our seasonings and sauces we have half a cup of brown sugar now this is the secret this is what makes it grandma's goulash is the brown sugar in it so we're going to add three tablespoons of soy sauce and then one tablespoon of worcestershire sauce then we're just going to mix it really well now we're getting pretty full so if you have an eight quart instant pot i would highly suggest cooking it in the eight quart but we're going to we're going to see how it goes next we have one pound of elbow macaroni now i'm only going to do half the box because i'm nervous that it's too full so if you you could do the whole box if you had an eight quart but half the box so just a half a pound if you're going to do just a six quart you're going to dump in our macaroni there we go and then we're going to add about a cup of water so we need that water in there so that so one it will pressurize and two will get our noodles all cooked all right ink we're ready okay so you're going to make sure the lid is on all the way make sure this little knob is turned to sealing not venting then you're going to push the pressure cook button because we have to cook those noodles we need to go to four minutes so we're going to go here we go we're at 50 so we got to go down right away and because our hamburger is already cooked you really just have to cook it for the amount of time that the noodles cook so four minutes once you set the timer you can just walk away all right so now that the timer is done it's been sitting here for about seven minutes or so we're going to turn this little knob to venting okay now that all the pressure is out you can open the lid safely oh my gosh this looks so good i don't know if you guys can see this but yes i'm excited i think my husband will be excited for this one all right we're just going to pour some into this bowl here so you can see it now if you want to add a little bit of salt and pepper that's great i didn't add a ton of seasoning but it really doesn't need a lot because it has a lot of flavor in there and then if you want to put a little bit of cheese on top serve it just like that with your kids and they will love it now my noodle of choice today is small shell noodles so you just need one pound of noodles then you're going to put them in the bottom of your instant pot you're going to take your pot and fill it just until the noodles are covered with water next go ahead and put your lid on make sure it's sealed correctly now if you have a knob you want to turn it to ceiling not venting next you'll push manual or pressure cook button and go to four minutes now after a few seconds it will say on that means you're good you can walk away now after the four minutes you can turn the knob to release it but just beware with pasta sometimes it makes a giant mess so you can turn it back and forth releasing the pressure slowly once all the pressure is out go ahead and lift the lid up and your pasta should be done now i didn't need to drain any water because there is no water left to drain so go ahead and mix up your noodles before you add the other ingredients so first i'm going to add about eight tablespoons of butter i like to use salted butter that's my favorite in macaroni and cheese next you're going to add about a half a cup of milk now we're going to add a little bit more but right now we're just going to add half a cup then we're going to add two cups of sharp cheddar white cheese did you hear that sharp cheddar cheese it is amazing and then about a half a cup to a cup of shredded parmesan so now it's time to just mix everything in so slowly gently mix it in now it'd be easier to push the saute button just to get it warm or warmer on the bottom to melt your butter faster and to melt your cheese faster now because it is really cheesy you want to make sure to add just a little bit more liquid just so you can make it creamy not so chunky cheesy so i added a half a cup more of milk then you're just going to continue mixing until all of your butter is melted and all of your cheese is mixed together now you can add just a little bit of salt and pepper i just like to add salt in my mac and cheese and then go ahead and mix that in as well now when you're all done your cheese should be nice and creamy this is how we like it now when i serve it i also like to add just a little bit of parmesan cheese on top and there you have it so this recipe is perfect if you have leftover chicken i sometimes buy this chicken that you can get and steam it and shred and it's my favorite i just buy it you can get it at walmart or kroger then we just need some onion and chive cream cheese a little bit of mozzarella now it calls for real bacon that's crumbled but we're going to call this my real bacon because it's a simple step and i love how it's already cooked and then just one thing of crescents okay so the first thing we're going to do is microwave our cream cheese and i'm literally just going to take off the foil and microwave it in this package all right now we're ready to mix everything together so we're going to take our chicken i'm going to give it to you just go ahead and dump it in good job maily perfect then we have our cream cheese i microwaved it for about 30 seconds just so it's a little bit softer it will make it a lot easier to stir huh while she's mixing all that i'm going to add about a half cup or so of bacon bits you can add more if you want the last thing we're going to add is about a half a cup of mozzarella cheese and i'm just going to add all this because yeah sometimes it's okay to do a little more than half a cup because everyone loves cheese all right now that we're all mixed together it's time to put together the pockets now we're just going to open up our crescents oh didn't come and now we can crunch it all right so now we're going to take this little dude we're going to roll it out now it is in triangles right now but we don't want triangles we're going to make little squares so we're actually going to cut it ourselves kind of fix those little lines so we're going to smush them together so we need to make 16 squares out of here so i cut it in fourths then we're just going to cut those into fourths too so okay so you're going to take one square you're going to spread out just a little bit because we needed bigger than this little tiny square so we're going to stretch it and then maily do you want to put about two tablespoons or so right in the middle okay good work then we're just going to close it up i just like to pinch all four pull up all four corners and then just pinch it at the top looks good okay so we finished up these little guys now if i would do it again i'd actually probably leave them in triangles it would make our lives a little bit easier huh we also had about we only used about half of this so thankfully i have some more crescent so we're going to make a little bit more so with this recipe make sure you get two of these all right now it's time to bake these we're gonna bake them at about 375 degrees for 10 minutes 10 minutes right they went about 10 minutes they look amazing all right guys thanks so much for joining me if you want more easy recipes you can find more just right up there all right i'll see you guys next time